I have a hopeless memory for things that must be done and so I use a combination of a diary and to-do list to manage myself. Some of you will recognise the need. A to-do list is all very well, but it only helps us manage our jobs if we do the things listed. Tasks come in all shapes and sizes from the interesting to the mundane, the easy to the challenging. Human nature sees to it that the exciting and the easy things get done and the others are endlessly bumped to tomorrow, the day that never comes.
Many years ago, in a management training course I recall being advised always to start the working day by knocking off the list something that is difficult, time consuming or challenging. It was good advice.
Sometimes we read of politicians ‘filibustering’; ‘making long speeches in order to delay or prevent new laws being made’. Filibustering is a political tactic which put alongside obfuscation could sometimes describe the endless delays in progressing decisions in organisations where there is no real imperative to change anything. Obfuscation is ‘the act of making something less clear and less easily understood, especially intentionally.’
The old testament character Job was in difficult circumstances. As almost everything that could go wrong in his life did go wrong, his ‘comforters’ tried to give him reasons why, while he tried to keep hold of his faith in God who, for a while, was enveloped in darkness. At a low point Job says to his ‘comforters’, [Job 16:3] ‘Will your long speeches never end? What ails you that you keep on arguing?’
Arguing, talking, delaying, debating are all important in good decision making and they are equally a part of putting off indefinitely those things we never quite get around to doing.
Lent affords us a good opportunity to clear out the incomplete tasks from the spiritual to-do list, especially those things that are wasting our time and holding us back in our spiritual journey. As we read the Gospels, we do not read accounts of windy speeches but of a master at work, going directly to the point, seeing the need, saying the difficult thing and, ultimately, facing great opposition.
In the coming months, and almost certainly before next Lent, we will have to face the reality of how church looks after we emerge from all the COVID restrictions. Church (capital ‘C’) will always be the Body of Christ, but church is what we make of the organisation in our locality and which sometimes degrades into a world of filibustering and obfuscation.
A prayer
Lord Jesus Christ, only Head of the Church, give us the wisdom to do our spiritual spring-cleaning so when opportunity comes, we can respond with fleetness of foot to your guidance for the future of the local church seeking to be a part of the Church. Show us how to be the people you would have us be, now and always, for your Kingdom’s sake.
Amen.